Chuck Greenberg signed Derek Boen's 'claw' T-shirt at the Rangers' 'Red Rally' in Arlington last week. The new owner, who wants to elevate the team's status in the majors, is known as being hands-on and unassuming.

ARLINGTON - Surrounded by a red sea of adrenaline-fueled fans,
Chuck Greenberg wrapped up an alfresco radio interview last week
and waded into the waiting crowd.

"Thank you! Thank you!" they chanted as the new managing partner
and CEO of the Texas Rangers began shaking hands, posing for photos
and signing autographs on baseballs and bats, posters, shirts -
pretty much anything that could hold a signature.

At that moment, Greenberg seemed more rock star than
attorney-businessman determined to elevate the Rangers into one of
the premier franchises in Major League Baseball.

He's off to a fast start. The new Ranger ownership team quickly
cut prices on ballpark staples such as beer and hot dogs, made life
a whole lot easier for parking attendants by lowering rates from
$12 to $10 and saw that enough key players were added to help the
Rangers reach the playoffs for the first time in 11 years.

And that's just the beginning, said Greenberg, 49.

Longtime fans got their first good look at the new face of
Rangers management a few days after baseball owners approved the
sale of the team to a group led by Greenberg and Hall of Fame
pitcher Nolan Ryan.

It was a searing Sunday afternoon game, 103 degrees, when a
Rangers home run soared toward the bleachers in left-center. A fan
jumped and caught it, and, as the TV camera pulled back, there was
Greenberg, a couple of rows up, chatting with people in the
crowd.

"On Sunday afternoons I always try to end up in the bleachers
for two or three innings," Greenberg said later. "First, they're
great seats. And second, we're very interested in the fan
experience and want to see what that's like in every part of the
park.

"We just want to get better."

That's no surprise to people who have watched Greenberg at
work.

"Chuck is a hands-on guy, very unassuming," said Joe Hurd,
president of the Blair County Chamber of Commerce in Altoona, Pa.,
where a Greenberg-led group owned the Altoona Curve minor-league
club for much of the past decade. "With the Curve, he showed he
genuinely cared about the fan base, the players and the whole
operation."

As a high-profile sports attorney in Pittsburgh, 100 miles west
of Altoona, Greenberg ran the risk of alienating Curve fans, Hurd
said.

"But I never saw him in a position where he was condescending to
anyone. That endeared him to people."

He's doing the same in Texas.

Meeting the fans

At the Rangers' "Red Rally" on Friday, while waiting behind the
stadium gates, Greenberg greeted everyone who passed, from general
manager Jon Daniels to a worker wearing brightly spattered
painter's whites.

"I don't choose to go out and meet everyone because it's
strategic," Greenberg said. "I do it because it's interesting to
get to know them. I'm interested in their ideas, how to take care
of them and take care of the fans, too."

The pairing of the outgoing Greenberg and the more reticent Ryan
seems on the surface an unlikely one, and Greenberg still sounds
surprised that the two came together.

Though each owns a couple of minor-league baseball teams, Ryan
and Greenberg had never met until Greenberg accompanied another
potential buyer to look over the Rangers' operation in May
2009.

That buyer passed, and Greenberg began thinking about putting
together a group of his own.

He knew Ryan's sons, Reid and Reese, from various minor league
meetings. And Reid told him that his dad had been impressed with
Greenberg's knowledge of the game. But at that point, Ryan didn't
seem interested in ownership.

A couple of months after that first meeting, Reid Ryan spoke
with Greenberg again and said he thought his dad might be
calling.

"And the next day, he did. He asked me to come down and meet
with him. Originally it was going to be one day, and we ended up
staying for three days and at the end, we agreed to be partners,"
Greenberg said.

That began a year of work to bring in investors, forge a
purchase agreement with then-owner Tom Hicks and finally win a
court-ordered auction of the team over another group led by Mark
Cuban and Houston businessman Jim Crane.

The partnership with the former Ranger star brought Greenberg
immediate credibility in Texas. If Nolan likes him, several fans
said, Greenberg must be OK.

Living a dream

It also allowed Greenberg to live out a childhood dream.

As a kid in Pittsburgh, he enjoyed sports, but baseball was his
favorite.

Like most kids, he dreamed of playing professionally, and like
most, he soon realized that wasn't likely to happen.

"So then I started thinking that it would be interesting to run
a team, but I never thought of that as something realistic,"
Greenberg said. "It was just one of those things I thought would be
incredibly cool."

During the Red Rally, he mentioned the uncertain months when the
sale process was caught up in the courts.

"In case you haven't heard," he told the crowd, "we've had kind
of an interesting summer. But it was all worth it.

"The fun is just starting, and it's going to be here for many
years."

Some observers suggest that the Rangers have the potential to be
a pretty good midmarket franchise, but those people think small,
Greenberg said.

"The great hidden secret is that this is a big market, the
biggest market in the country with just one baseball team," he
said. "But in many ways, it's like Goliath looking in the funhouse
mirror and seeing a 90-pound weakling in the reflection.

"We're as strong as we believe we are," he said. "And we think
we're Goliath."

For proof, he pointed across the parking lots toward Cowboys
Stadium, home to "the ultimate big-market franchise in a big-market
league."

Two years ago, he said, the Rangers drew about 1.8 million fans.
This year, attendance topped 2.5 million.

"We're the hottest thing going in Major League Baseball, and
we're going to build on that," he said.

With a bounty of good, young players on the team or reaching the
upper levels of the Rangers' minor-league affiliates, the
on-the-field product should keep fans coming back.

Couple that with a fan-friendly attitude at Rangers Ballpark and
Greenberg sees a future as bright as the Texas sky.

"We've seen a huge comeback in the last two years primarily
because of the performance of the team, coupled with the hope our
fans have that all the things they've been waiting for for 39 years
are on the brink of possibility," Greenberg said.

"If we can compete for championships and include all the other
aspects of fan outreach, I believe the Rangers will be one of the
most dynamic franchises in baseball."

IN SPORTSDAY: The Rangers' blueprint for success depends on many
factors. 1C

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